A long time ago in a galaxy full of old-school frustration....
When Super Star Wars was released in 1992, it was probably considered to be a very cutting edge game. It had amazing 2D graphics along with some impressive "3D" vehicle sequences....but it also had something that you don't see much of these days in games: extreme difficulty.
The game loosely follows Episode IV: A New Hope. Now when I say "loosely" I mean it. It takes certain liberties with the story of the movie so it can make the game work like...well, a game! Sure, Luke didn't slaughter hundreds of Jawas to get R2-D2 but without these kinds of changes the game would be even shorter than it already is (takes 3-4 hours to beat) so I think it's warranted.
Super Star Wars is a game that can be both incredibly frustrating and yet very fun at the same time. It's a pretty unforgiving platformer and there are no save game slots and no passcode system whatsoever so (in true old school fashion) if you want to beat the game, you do it in one sitting. You only get a few lives and a small number of continues at your disposal and you better make good use of them even on the "Easy" difficulty.
About 2/3rds through the story you get the ability to control the smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee companion Chewbacca. Unfortunately these other characters don't add much of a difference. With Han you start out automatically with a blaster power-up in your arsenal and with Chewie you get a larger health bar at the start. It doesn't add much and these are already things that you can collect with Luke rather easily.
Then there's the "landspeeder sequences" where for whatever reason you have to kill a set number of Jawas before you proceed to where you want to go. It really doesn't make a lot of sense and it's almost as if the developers REALLY didn't like Jawas or something. Yet...like the game itself, it's still quite a bit of crazy weird fun.
Though its steep difficulty and its strange story changes may turn off some of today's gamers, Super Star Wars is still a whole lot of classic platforming Star Wars fun that will test your skills and remind you how much games have changed over the years.
